Sando breaks down the similarities and important differences between rookie Sanchez and Wilson. Pretty interesting to see that while some of the raw numbers are close, Wilson is head and shoulders above where Sanchez was at the same point in their careers when you take a deeper look at the numbers.

The football outsiders dudes have a formula they've been playing with for a few years that tries to forecast the career success of college quarterbacks coming into the NFL. One of the major factors in the equation is number of games started at the college level. Guys who don't start a lot of games and end up starting in the NFL have a very poor track record apparently.

The biggest question about LCF continues to be the importance of games started. This is still the most important variable in the equation. As I explained in last year's article, any quarterback projection system based on past performance is going to highly value collegiate games started. From 1990 to 2005, it was far and away the most important variable in determining the success of highly-drafted quarterbacks.

And here's what they said about Wilson when they looked at him through the lens of their formula:

I would be remiss if I didn't at least mention the ridiculous projection that the Lewin Career Forecast spits out for Russell Wilson. Yes, that projection is even higher than the one for Robert Griffin. No, it doesn't particularly mean that Wilson is a sleeper prospect. There are a few things going on here that the LCF is just not designed to account for.First and foremost, the change in Wilson's passer rating between his junior and senior years is insane. Remember that earlier I noted that Griffin had a larger senior year passer rating increase than any quarterback in our data set? Well, Wilson's senior year passer rating increase is 40 percent larger than Griffin's. But does it matter when the quarterback is playing in a completely different offense for a completely different school in his last year of college eligibility? At Wisconsin, Wilson got to pick apart defenses that were concentrating on stopping Montee Ball. At North Carolina State, I doubt opponents were quaking in their boots at the thought of Mustafa Greene and Dean Haynes. It goes without saying that there isn't another quarterback in the LCF data set who transferred between his junior and senior years.

There's also the issue of height, another data point where there's nobody in our data set that can be compared to Wilson. At first, it seems strange that LCF doesn't include a variable to discount short quarterbacks, but when you look at the data set that went into creating LCF the reasons are pretty clear. There's no penalty for being 5-foot-11, like Wilson is, because there are no quarterbacks in the data set who are shorter than 6-foot-0. There's no penalty for being only 6-foot-0 because the two quarterbacks who are 6-foot-0 are Drew Brees and Michael Vick.Quarterbacks who are Wilson's height simply don't get drafted in the first three rounds of the draft, period. The FO master database only includes three quarterbacks who are below six feet tall: Seneca Wallace, Joe Hamilton, and Flutie. That's a fourth-round pick, a seventh-round pick, and an 11th round pick from 25 years ago. Even if we go all the way back to 1991, the only quarterbacks taken in the first six rounds at 6-foot-0 or shorter were Vick, Brees, Wallace, Joe Germaine (fourth round, 1999), and Troy Smith (fifth round, 2007).Wilson too will probably be drafted on the third day of the draft, round four or later, which would render his absurdly high LCF moot.

EastCoastHawksFan wrote:I was very happy with the Curry pick ( still am , especially bc it meant no Sanchez) Then when the Jets traded up and got sanchez i couldnt stop laughing. its been an ongoing joke ever since.

I hope you're being somewhat facetious, cause the Curry pick is right up there with McGwire and Mirer for worst picks of all time.

Sanchez is a serviceable QB, and it's not all his fault. He has horrible skill players around him, and has to answer 200 Tebow questions a week.

EastCoastHawksFan wrote:I was very happy with the Curry pick ( still am , especially bc it meant no Sanchez) Then when the Jets traded up and got sanchez i couldnt stop laughing. its been an ongoing joke ever since.

I hope you're being somewhat facetious, cause the Curry pick is right up there with McGwire and Mirer for worst picks of all time.

Sanchez is a serviceable QB, and it's not all his fault. He has horrible skill players around him, and has to answer 200 Tebow questions a week.

Ummmm.... the Curry pick didn't set us back nearly as bad as the Jets taking Sanchez that high. Curry wasn't a bad pick based on all of the available data at the time. He was considered by just about everyone to be the surest pick in that draft. Sometimes things just don't work out.

Football is not a matter of life and death. It's much more important than that. ~ Bill Shankley

EastCoastHawksFan wrote:I was very happy with the Curry pick ( still am , especially bc it meant no Sanchez) Then when the Jets traded up and got sanchez i couldnt stop laughing. its been an ongoing joke ever since.

I hope you're being somewhat facetious, cause the Curry pick is right up there with McGwire and Mirer for worst picks of all time.

Sanchez is a serviceable QB, and it's not all his fault. He has horrible skill players around him, and has to answer 200 Tebow questions a week.

Ummmm.... the Curry pick didn't set us back nearly as bad as the Jets taking Sanchez that high. Curry wasn't a bad pick based on all of the available data at the time. He was considered by just about everyone to be the surest pick in that draft. Sometimes things just don't work out.

I wonder what sort of things were being said pre-draft about McGwire and Mirer. Was it similar to how highly-touted Curry was, or were there some red flags that weren't noticed or ignored?

Am I glad we didn't draft Sanchez? Yes, but to say you were relieved that we drafted Curry instead of many other very good players is shortsighted IMO.

Hindsight is always 20/20. You could do this with just about every pick any team made that didn't yield a hall of famer. The Curry pick turned out to be one that didn't work out, but it hardly ranks among the worst of all time. it wasn't a reach by any stretch of the imagination. the Sanchez pick was considered to be a reach by many.

Football is not a matter of life and death. It's much more important than that. ~ Bill Shankley

gargantual wrote:I wonder what sort of things were being said pre-draft about McGwire and Mirer. Was it similar to how highly-touted Curry was, or were there some red flags that weren't noticed or ignored?

Mirer was highly touted behind Bledsoe in the 1993 draft, so hard to criticize that pick. But McGwire? From what I remember, pretty much the only person who wanted him was Behring.

.........and yeah Curry was considered the "safest" pick of that draft.

But that's kinda my point about hindsight. Mirer was obviously seen as value for the pick at the time, and his first season would appear to back that up. Curry was seen as good value for a top-5 pick by pretty much everyone. That he disappointed was unfortunate, but I still wouldn't call it a bad move by the FO. He wasn't a reach, and we had a need at the position after losing Peterson.

Football is not a matter of life and death. It's much more important than that. ~ Bill Shankley

gargantual wrote:I wonder what sort of things were being said pre-draft about McGwire and Mirer. Was it similar to how highly-touted Curry was, or were there some red flags that weren't noticed or ignored?

Mirer was highly touted behind Bledsoe in the 1993 draft, so hard to criticize that pick. But McGwire? From what I remember, pretty much the only person who wanted him was Behring.

.........and yeah Curry was considered the "safest" pick of that draft.

And we all know Behring's motives now in retrospect (ie tanking the team to pave the way for moving to LA), so not bad judgement on his part but intentional perhaps? (I don't know a whole lot about that era).

Wilson's third-down passer rating over the past five games has been 103.4, which ranks fifth in the NFL over that span. That is up from 45.4 over his first four games

This is without a doubt my favorite thing about Wilson. You can actually seei him improving. Too quick to leave the pocket? Fixed. Always goes right instead of forward? Fixed. Putting the balls too high? Fixed. Playing poorly on 3rd down? Fixed. Not hitting the routes on time? As of last week, apparently fixed.

sadhappy wrote:The football outsiders dudes have a formula they've been playing with for a few years that tries to forecast the career success of college quarterbacks coming into the NFL. One of the major factors in the equation is number of games started at the college level. Guys who don't start a lot of games and end up starting in the NFL have a very poor track record apparently.

gargantual wrote:And we all know Behring's motives now in retrospect (ie tanking the team to pave the way for moving to LA), so not bad judgement on his part but intentional perhaps? (I don't know a whole lot about that era).

Behring was a Jerry Jones type, he thought his business acumen made him a smart about how to run a football franchise. The problem with Behring was he made his millions as a sleazy used car lot owner, so that's pretty much how he ran the team..........dysfunctional and on the cheap.

Not sure if all this played into your moving the team motive. My guess is he wasn't bright enough to think this way, but I wouldn't put it past his sleazy ass.

For instance qb rating 1st half - RW number 6th, qb rating 2nd half RW doesnt make the top 20........ wow but then lets break it down further lets look at 4th quarter RW is 13th in the NFL so clearly he just sucks in the 3rd quarter

I realize these stats are over the whole season. I just liked all the different things one could break it down on

gargantual wrote:I wonder what sort of things were being said pre-draft about McGwire and Mirer. Was it similar to how highly-touted Curry was, or were there some red flags that weren't noticed or ignored?

When the Hawks took Mirer #2, he was right there with Drew Bledsoe who went #1. Had the Hawks had #1 and taken Bledsoe, the Pats would've gone with Mirer. It was one of those years where the top 2 picks are already known. Like Manning/Leaf or Luck/RG3. So you can't really give the Hawks any grief for Mirer.

McGwire on the other hand was a total flub on Ken Behring's part. The old wives tale is that Chuck Knox absolutely hated the pick, and if the Hawks were going to go qb, prefered Brett Favre, who ended up going to the Falcons in the 2nd round. The only thing I'll say about the McGwire pick is that he was taken 16 overall. Not exactly the colossal bust of top 5 picks like Mirer and Curry. But definitely in the next level.

I'll say this. Wilson as a rookie is better than Sanchez is now in his 4th year.

Here are Sanchez completion % year by year:

2009: 53.82010: 54.82011: 56.72012: 52.9

Wilson's % is currently 62. And that includes the first handful of subpar games and all the drops in the SF game.

Wilson only seems to get better as the season goes on. And as Sando said, Sanchez regressed as his rookie season went on. And has regressed/stagnated the following years to come. Not surprising given Sanchez left after 1 year of playing and Wilson worked on his game his entire collage career.

Last edited by Hawkadeus on Thu Nov 08, 2012 2:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.

gargantual wrote:I wonder what sort of things were being said pre-draft about McGwire and Mirer. Was it similar to how highly-touted Curry was, or were there some red flags that weren't noticed or ignored?

When the Hawks took Mirer #2, he was right there with Drew Bledsoe who went #1. Had the Hawks had #1 and taken Bledsoe, the Pats would've gone with Mirer. It was one of those years where the top 2 picks are already known. Like Manning/Leaf or Luck/RG3. So you can't really give the Hawks any grief for Mirer.

McGwire on the other hand was a total flub on Ken Behring's part. The old wives tale is that Chuck Knox absolutely hated the pick, and if the Hawks were going to go qb, prefered Brett Favre, who ended up going to the Falcons in the 2nd round. The only thing I'll say about the McGwire pick is that he was taken 16 overall. Not exactly the colossal bust of top 5 picks like Mirer and Curry. But definitely in the next level.

I've heard from people that were there that the fight was on and is what ultimately cost Chuck his job. He wanted Favre, but Behring wanted McGwire because he felt he was marketable being Mark's brother and being from SDSU (so the SoCal fans knew him well). Behring was hellbent on moving.

The Mirer pick was a foregone conclusion. The Pats tanked a game and should have been busted by the league, but it didn't happen. They completely threw a game to assure they got Bledsoe. It wasn't a 1 and 1a kind of situation. It was clearly #1 was Bledsoe and Mirer was the #2 QB and we needed a QB. If we didn't need a QB Mirer could have dropped. I don't think anybody would have traded up for him. He had some issues in college and teams felt he was somewhat of a character risk due to his behavior (basically just spoiled brat stuff... but it was a flag for some teams).

Yes, Pete took a lot of heat for that. He was quite vocal about the fact that he felt Mark didn't have enough experience to go to the NFL. I believe he even indicated that history and stats and such showed that it was a very high risk move, and that guys who came out early without many starts usually ended up not succeeding.

A lot of guys in the press said that Pete was just being self-serving, trying to keep his starting quarterback another year. But Pete said he was doing it to try and convince Mark to stay for his own good, and also to try and pass that message along to other young guys who might be inclined to make the same decision that Mark was making.

Rumor has it that Mark's own family tried to convince him to stay another year as well. But Mark had been at USC for four years, was ready to graduate and wanted to chase his NFL dreams.

sc85sis wrote:Rumor has it that Mark's own family tried to convince him to stay another year as well. But Mark had been at USC for four years, was ready to graduate and wanted to chase his NFL dreams.

It's not a rumor.

"I felt it was the right decision no matter what, no matter what anybody said," he said Wednesday. "When you make a decision like that, there's no turning back. ... He wasn't the only one saying don't go. There were plenty of people, my parents included. That's just the way it is. It didn't really affect me.”

sc85sis wrote:Yes, Pete took a lot of heat for that. He was quite vocal about the fact that he felt Mark didn't have enough experience to go to the NFL. I believe he even indicated that history and stats and such showed that it was a very high risk move, and that guys who came out early without many starts usually ended up not succeeding.

A lot of guys in the press said that Pete was just being self-serving, trying to keep his starting quarterback another year. But Pete said he was doing it to try and convince Mark to stay for his own good, and also to try and pass that message along to other young guys who might be inclined to make the same decision that Mark was making.

Don't be fooled into thinking Pete wanting Sanchez to stay for his senior season was purely for Sanchez's best interest. I'm sure it was more like 20% Sanchez's best interest, 80% wanting a NFL caliber senior QB and not having to start a freshman QB.

sc85sis wrote:Yes, Pete took a lot of heat for that. He was quite vocal about the fact that he felt Mark didn't have enough experience to go to the NFL. I believe he even indicated that history and stats and such showed that it was a very high risk move, and that guys who came out early without many starts usually ended up not succeeding.

A lot of guys in the press said that Pete was just being self-serving, trying to keep his starting quarterback another year. But Pete said he was doing it to try and convince Mark to stay for his own good, and also to try and pass that message along to other young guys who might be inclined to make the same decision that Mark was making.

Don't be fooled into thinking Pete wanting Sanchez to stay for his senior season was purely for Sanchez's best interest. I'm sure it was more like 20% Sanchez's best interest, 80% wanting a NFL caliber senior QB and not having to start a freshman QB.

When sc85 speaks to pete's thoughts, I'm pretty confident they are on the money. It's kinda obvious isn't it? Stop thinking about what to say next for a moment and you might learn a thing or two.

sc85sis wrote:Yes, Pete took a lot of heat for that. He was quite vocal about the fact that he felt Mark didn't have enough experience to go to the NFL. I believe he even indicated that history and stats and such showed that it was a very high risk move, and that guys who came out early without many starts usually ended up not succeeding.

A lot of guys in the press said that Pete was just being self-serving, trying to keep his starting quarterback another year. But Pete said he was doing it to try and convince Mark to stay for his own good, and also to try and pass that message along to other young guys who might be inclined to make the same decision that Mark was making.

Don't be fooled into thinking Pete wanting Sanchez to stay for his senior season was purely for Sanchez's best interest. I'm sure it was more like 20% Sanchez's best interest, 80% wanting a NFL caliber senior QB and not having to start a freshman QB.

When sc85 speaks to pete's thoughts, I'm pretty confident they are on the money. It's kinda obvious isn't it? Stop thinking about what to say next for a moment and you might learn a thing or two.

Sorry, I thought I was allowed to have my own opinion. Can you write me a list of people I'm suppose to agree with on here so I don't make the same mistake again? Thanks in advance.

Sgt. Largent wrote:Don't be fooled into thinking Pete wanting Sanchez to stay for his senior season was purely for Sanchez's best interest. I'm sure it was more like 20% Sanchez's best interest, 80% wanting a NFL caliber senior QB and not having to start a freshman QB.

When sc85 speaks to pete's thoughts, I'm pretty confident they are on the money. It's kinda obvious isn't it? Stop thinking about what to say next for a moment and you might learn a thing or two.

Sorry, I thought I was allowed to have my own opinion. Can you write me a list of people I'm suppose to agree with on here so I don't make the same mistake again? Thanks in advance.

Of course you can have your own opinion. I can also tell you that in my opinion your opinion is wrong while trying be helpful and point something obvious out for you. You are free to accept or ignore my input. No need to take it personally.

sadhappy wrote:When sc85 speaks to pete's thoughts, I'm pretty confident they are on the money. It's kinda obvious isn't it? Stop thinking about what to say next for a moment and you might learn a thing or two.

Sorry, I thought I was allowed to have my own opinion. Can you write me a list of people I'm suppose to agree with on here so I don't make the same mistake again? Thanks in advance.

Of course you can have your own opinion. I can also tell you that in my opinion your opinion is wrong while trying be helpful and point something obvious out for you. You are free to accept or ignore my input. No need to take it personally.

I appreciate the vote of confidence. However, I will say that while I feel like I have a pretty good sense of Pete from having chatted (very briefly) with him a couple of times, as well as reading extensively and following him at both USC and in Seattle, this does not mean that I'm a mind reader. LOL

I do believe that Pete was doing what he felt was in Mark's best interest as well as USC's. He was very consistent over the years of telling guys they generally should not leave early unless they were pretty much guaranteed to be drafted #1 at their position. Knowing that, combined with what Pete said about Mark at the time, has lead me to feel that he really was concerned that Mark wasn't making the best decision for himself if he wanted to have a long-term successful NFL career.

Obviously Pete would also have preferred to have his starting QB back for another year. But I've never had the sense that that is the only reason for his reaction--in spite of what some in the media stated at the time.

EastCoastHawksFan wrote:Ofcourse I wish we would have Taken Clay Matthews , but while i am being completly realistic Mora was going to Draft either Sanchez , Curry or Crabtree.

I was happy with the Curry pick and still am , we didnt have to deal with a prima dona , or think that we had a QB of the future that could set ur franchise back years.

Hindsight is 20/20. Had we taken Matthews, everyone wouldve gone insane calling it a massive reach. He was nowhere near the conversation for the #4 pick. Obviously now looking back it would've been the move to make. But that's the draft for ya.

If taking Curry meant we didnt take Sanchez, I am very happy we took Curry. Sanchez wouldve been even crappier here, as at the time we didnt have the team the Jets had to give him an easy transition into the league. And we would still likely be stuck with him, seeing as how you can't give up on that big an investment draft wise so fast. So in a weird way, the Curry pick may have been for the best.

sadhappy wrote:The football outsiders dudes have a formula they've been playing with for a few years that tries to forecast the career success of college quarterbacks coming into the NFL. One of the major factors in the equation is number of games started at the college level. Guys who don't start a lot of games and end up starting in the NFL have a very poor track record apparently.

The biggest question about LCF continues to be the importance of games started. This is still the most important variable in the equation. As I explained in last year's article, any quarterback projection system based on past performance is going to highly value collegiate games started. From 1990 to 2005, it was far and away the most important variable in determining the success of highly-drafted quarterbacks.

And here's what they said about Wilson when they looked at him through the lens of their formula:

I would be remiss if I didn't at least mention the ridiculous projection that the Lewin Career Forecast spits out for Russell Wilson. Yes, that projection is even higher than the one for Robert Griffin. No, it doesn't particularly mean that Wilson is a sleeper prospect. There are a few things going on here that the LCF is just not designed to account for.First and foremost, the change in Wilson's passer rating between his junior and senior years is insane. Remember that earlier I noted that Griffin had a larger senior year passer rating increase than any quarterback in our data set? Well, Wilson's senior year passer rating increase is 40 percent larger than Griffin's. But does it matter when the quarterback is playing in a completely different offense for a completely different school in his last year of college eligibility? At Wisconsin, Wilson got to pick apart defenses that were concentrating on stopping Montee Ball. At North Carolina State, I doubt opponents were quaking in their boots at the thought of Mustafa Greene and Dean Haynes. It goes without saying that there isn't another quarterback in the LCF data set who transferred between his junior and senior years.

There's also the issue of height, another data point where there's nobody in our data set that can be compared to Wilson. At first, it seems strange that LCF doesn't include a variable to discount short quarterbacks, but when you look at the data set that went into creating LCF the reasons are pretty clear. There's no penalty for being 5-foot-11, like Wilson is, because there are no quarterbacks in the data set who are shorter than 6-foot-0. There's no penalty for being only 6-foot-0 because the two quarterbacks who are 6-foot-0 are Drew Brees and Michael Vick.Quarterbacks who are Wilson's height simply don't get drafted in the first three rounds of the draft, period. The FO master database only includes three quarterbacks who are below six feet tall: Seneca Wallace, Joe Hamilton, and Flutie. That's a fourth-round pick, a seventh-round pick, and an 11th round pick from 25 years ago. Even if we go all the way back to 1991, the only quarterbacks taken in the first six rounds at 6-foot-0 or shorter were Vick, Brees, Wallace, Joe Germaine (fourth round, 1999), and Troy Smith (fifth round, 2007).Wilson too will probably be drafted on the third day of the draft, round four or later, which would render his absurdly high LCF moot.